Navigation

Thursday, July 28, 2016

Armada: Bigger fish to try

Back and ready to rock!

While everyone I'm sure is extremely excited for the MC80 Liberty-class ships to come out stomping on people's faces, there are downsides with the ship. I don't really like the dial (lol yes, X-Wing reference) because I think the straights can cause a little bit of issue if you don't spam Navs or have Madine to course correct. Honestly, when you really think about the damage potential the ship offers compared to the MC80 Home One-class ships, it's almost as if the ship was designed for Madine.

This got me thinking a bit: Now that we have cheap transport activators, I think it might be time to revisit an old list that I was trying around for funnsies in Wave 2. For all intent and purposes, this list should be able to deliver a lot of firepower while realistically, the only thing that I really miss out is another drop compared to what I was bringing during the Spring season.

So what you see here is a ridiculous 380 bid list with double Ackbar MC80 BBs. This basically means that I'm throwing off the gloves and going balls deep in terms of damage and letting the list speak for itself. Unlike the Motti double ISD-II + Gozanti lists, I actually think I'd rather take my MC80s to the party simply because of their Engine Techs. ET is a huge benefactor in a list that relies on setting up great shots and as long as you spam Navs on all of your big ships, you should be able to pour out tons of damage from all sides. The only real reason why a list like this didn't get much traction in last wave is because it lacked the activations needed for it to become a reality. You literally had to give up a lot more than it was worth for you to take this kind of list, but all that changed with the arrival of the transports.

Re-rolling dem blues!

Another list that I've been working on is actually based off my tournament winning Ackbar list from the Spring season. I've essentially reached a perfected version of my Ackbar list at the end of the season and the 3-0 record is testament to the experimentation I've had with the list itself. However, I've been excited to try some new cards and basically re-evaluate the way I look at squadrons. I know there are loads of new tools coming into the pipeline for bomber-heavy players, and that's the first thing that I want to stop cold in its tracks while preserving the bigfish style of play with my AckbarBB.

The big take-aways from this list is that I completely changed my squadron setup from 4x YT-2400s to Jan, Tycho and 4x A-Wings. What this will offer me is a better alpha, more protection thanks for extra brace tokens, and a fantastic interaction with Toryn Farr because of her ability to allow me to re-roll blue dice on ships and squadrons. The Jamming Field on the Bright Hope also helps, but being able to dive in there and alpha strike with more acurate firepower, and retaliate with equal accuracy is very, very good. I don't know, I'm more excited to try this variant of a fighter-heavy list than the bomber lists out there. I just don't have a lot of faith in myself using bomber lists because 1. I don't like the playstyle and 2. Bombers eat up my Battleship point and that's no bueno.

Well, what do you guys think? Go big or go home, or try out Toryn Farr and her fighters?